Isaiah 40:1-11 | Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13 | Mark 1:1-8
2 Peter 3:8-15a
8 But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.
11 Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? 13 But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. 14 Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; 15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.
Introduction
1953. Paris. Samuel Becket premiered what was to become his most well-known play. The two central characters are Vladimir, and Estragon. They are of indeterminate age, dressed as homeless bums and sitting alongside a road where there stands a solitary tree. That’s it. The rest of the stage is empty. As the curtain ascends, the audience sees these two characters waiting for a figure named Godot. He will remain a figure who never arrives.[1]
Act one opens with Vladimir saying: “Nothing to be done.” In other words, ‘All we’re doing here is wasting time.’ Aimless conversations ensue. The remainder of the play follows this pattern. And therein, Beckett makes his powerful point. As night falls, and Godot hasn’t come, the actors are on the verge of despair. The concluding dialogue in Beckett’s play is poignant:
Estragon: “What’s wrong with you?
Vladimir: “Nothing.”
“I’m going.”
“So am I.”
“Well where should we go?”
“Not far.”
“Oh yes let’s get far away from here.”
“We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Well we have to come back tomorrow.”
“For what?”
“To wait for Godot.”
“Ahh, he didn’t come did he.”
“No, and now it’s too late.”
“Yes, now it’s night.”
“Why don’t we hang ourselves?”
“With what?
“You haven’t got a bit of rope?”
“No.”
“Ahh, then we can’t.”
Silence.
“Let’s go.”
“You say we have to come back tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t go on like this.”
“Well that’s what you think. We’ll hang ourselves tomorrow.”
Pause.
“Unless Godot comes.”
“And if he comes?”
“We’ll be saved.”
“Well, shall we go?”
“Well, shall we go?”
“Yes, let’s go.”
They don’t move and the curtain falls.[2]
Waiting is a hard thing, especially when waiting requires a faith in promises that extend thousands of years, such as the belief that Christ is returning to earth. It’s a promise that was made to the people of God in the first century—a promise we saw in the various readings in the four weeks leading up to Advent. It’s a promise that is at the center of the idea of the season of Advent. And it is a challenging promise. Because, for almost 2,000 years, God’s people have been asked to wait. Faith that extends beyond this is a hard thing.
Uncertainty in this promise is, perhaps, a familiar thing. It is not uncommon to find Christians and, really, former Christians who think. ‘There is so much hatred in the world. There is so much unkindness and division. There is so much violence and war. So, if a good God not only exists and has promised to return, as Christianity claims, then shouldn’t he have come back by now? Why hasn’t he put an end to the suffering?’
This is the question that drives our reading from 2 Peter 3. And, as we shall see, Peter outlines two reasons we should continue to have confidence in the promises of Christ’s return and two implications from it.
1. Reasons to Have Confidence
First, Peter begins with the question of timing. In the context of all of chapter 3, Peter is addressing critics. He says in verses 3 and 4:
…you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts 4 and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!
In other words, ‘the world is just as miserable now as it has always been. Things are not getting better. Jesus is not coming back. God cannot be trusted.’ But Peter, as he does throughout the letter, speaks to his readers in order to build their confidence, to encourage them so that their faith would be stable in the midst of opponents and difficult circumstances. And he does so by giving two reasons to have confidence.
First, God’s time does not work like our time. “…with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” Now of course, he doesn’t mean this literally. He doesn’t say that 1 day equals 1,000 years, and so we can make precise calculations about timing and the return of the Lord. No, it is a simile. He says a day is like a thousand years. And a thousand years is like a day. God’s use of time does not conform to ours. And so, God works according to his own time.
Second, even if our time and God’s time worked the same, we still wouldn’t know. In verse 10, Peter uses the metaphor that both Jesus and Paul use at various points, the return of Jesus is like a thief in the night. Nobody knows when Jesus will return any more than they know when a thief will show up during the night. We cannot know. It has not been disclosed.
And so, with these two reasons in hand, we ought not to worry about the fact that Jesus has not come back yet. He will come according to God’s time, not ours. We should not lose confidence over this.
2. Implications
Rather, our confidence should increase. Indeed, this is the first implication of these reasons. Our confidence in God should increase because his delay in returning is a blessing to us. It is for our advantage. It is a demonstration of his patience, giving those who he has called more time to come to repentance. Notice it there in verse 9: “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” And while this verse is incredibly complicated, regardless of how you understand the difficult theology of predestination—the point remains: Christ’s delay in returning is not a reason to doubt his promise, but an act of grace that we have this much longer to repent and to turn to him in faith. In other words, the first implication is a reformation of our thinking, of our perspective, on the return of Christ. We should long for his return, but be grateful that we have this time now to repent.
And this, friends, is the second implication. Repentance. Peter asks the question: What sort of people should we be while we wait for the return of the Lord? He explains his answer in verses 11-15a:
We ought to be the sort of people who lead lives of holiness and godliness. We ought to be the sort of people, who, reading from the middle of verse 13:
…wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.
In verse 9, he called it repentance. In verse 13, he calls it righteousness. In verse 14, he calls it being found at peace, without spot or blemish. These are the very same ideas that John the Baptist calls the people of Judea and Jerusalem to as they wait for the return of God himself, who comes as Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God. We’re waiting for God to return. We’re tired and broken and weak. And we need to know that Christ is coming back—this is the whole focus of Advent, remember—Christ, is coming back. And so, we must remind ourselves of this most central truth. We all sin and are in need of forgiveness. We must repent. We must turn away from sin and live in a way that honors our savior. Being saved by Christ, we must consider how to live in a repentant and righteous way. We must adopt a posture of repentance, and live lives of righteousness.
Conclusion
We must consider our sins. We must think through the ways we practice selfishness, impurity of mind, deceit, abuse, and the whole multitude of sins every day in our lives. And then, we must follow Peter’s lead here. He wants to be found waiting, not aimlessly, but as those are ready, whose confidence in God is intact, whose faith is stable, who know that Jesus came to die and rise again in order that we might be forgiven of sin.
Let me pray: Heavenly Father, help us to be those found waiting with faith, repentance, and righteousness in your Son, our Savior, Christ Jesus. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] This section on Waiting for Godot is adapted from the 1&2 Peter and Jude commentary that I helped David R. Helm write in the Preaching the Word series at Crossway Books (2008).
[2] End of Act 2 of Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts (New York: Grove Press, 1954).